What a beautiful day, it hit 50 deg. outside and inside the solar tunnel it was too hot, we had to open the door to let the heat out...amazing for the end of February.
On January 31st, we had prepared two rows and seeded Crimson Giant Radish and Mesclun mix greens. By Tuesday, February 23rd, they had finally sprouted. They are our indicators of when we should really start the planting process! So yesterday, we spent the day preparing the remaining four 18"x 24' beds... by broad forking about 4 inches deep and applying bone meal to the newly forked soil. Because of our sandy soil in Pillager we flood the beds with water and let it soak in, this soil has not had water since last fall and dries out pretty bad over the winter. After about a half hour the water has soaked in and we can seed.
Our Mesclun mix consists of loose leaf, red and green oak leaf lettuces, Italian lettuce, mustard greens, endive, kale, red romaine and arugula.
On January 31st, we had prepared two rows and seeded Crimson Giant Radish and Mesclun mix greens. By Tuesday, February 23rd, they had finally sprouted. They are our indicators of when we should really start the planting process! So yesterday, we spent the day preparing the remaining four 18"x 24' beds... by broad forking about 4 inches deep and applying bone meal to the newly forked soil. Because of our sandy soil in Pillager we flood the beds with water and let it soak in, this soil has not had water since last fall and dries out pretty bad over the winter. After about a half hour the water has soaked in and we can seed.
Our Mesclun mix consists of loose leaf, red and green oak leaf lettuces, Italian lettuce, mustard greens, endive, kale, red romaine and arugula.
We also seeded Sparkler, German Giant, White Icicle and French Breakfast Radishes that should be up in a week or so and ready to harvest in a month!
We planted Red Russian and Vates Dwarf Blue Kale and interseeded with more radish that will be harvested before the kale is ready.
And of course we seeded green onions, broadcast over a wide row. We will transplant in the flat of germinated seeds that were started the end of January.
More lettuce, both Grand Rapids and Black Seeded Simpson (an heirloom lettuce) fills the last row in the solar tunnel. Gotta have our greens!
It is hard to be patient this time of year when we all know that within a month or so we should be planting in our gardens, and the cycle starts all over again of rebuilding our soil to produce healthy and nutritious vegetables for everyone.
